![]() The view from the pen is as close to it as Victoria will get, a rectangular view on the world where she can watch two bear shows and two circus shows daily. Victoria is still an able bear, just not as young as the show’s current stars. Maureen says it is because she doesn’t want to lose her front-row seat next to the show ring, the center of the action at Clark’s Trading Post. The bear paced and refused to eat until she was brought back to the three-sided concrete box where she has lived her entire life. Maureen planned to build a corridor to connect it to her house, for the bear to come inside. As Victoria got closer to retirement, Maureen built new accommodations for her behind her cabin, an elaborate habitat with cool caves to crawl in and trees to scratch and climb, and a pool of clean water. She never wanted to leave her enclosure right next to the show ring. All of the other bears spend the winter across the street at habitats. Maureen crunches through the low snow to Victoria’s enclosure. For years, Victoria was the star of her father’s bear show, and Maureen was his helper in the ring, leading Victoria through her tricks while her father played the showman. Maureen loved all the bears, but Victoria is her favorite, the one she calls her baby. Her father and uncle began doing a trained bear act in 1949 in the amusement park her grandparents opened in 1928, and Maureen and her brother have been working there since they were kids. Maureen has lived with bears all her 54 years. Maureen has had Victoria since she was a cub, a gift from a famous bear trainer, small enough to run around in Maureen’s cabin. The bear’s name is Victoria, and it is her 22d birthday. It’s something children’s books tell you never to do. It’s the dead of winter in the White Mountains, the 22d day of January, and Maureen Clark pulls in to the back of Clark’s Trading Post to do what she always does on this day. ![]()
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